I love to be read to.
If you stacked up all the hours my husband has read me essays from the New York of Review of Books while I cooked, I expect they would stretch into a solid month or more, a good long vacation in my brain. When a text enters awareness via human speech, we receive it more deeply, I believe, than through decoding letters on a page. Closing my eyes, I imagine a ribbon of words threading its way through my cells, suffusing my body, brain to toes. It’s like someone whispering in my ear, more like consuming the text than observing it: comforting, satisfying, intimate.
If I were very rich and self-indulgent, I’d hire someone with a plummy voice to be on call as my personal reader every hour of the day. Back in the real world, though, I have my beloved refurbished iPod, plump and juicy gigs at my beck and call 24/7.
And now I have free stories. LibriVox is a wonderful Internet site where you can download audio versions of books in the public domain. Last week, I listened to an early Agatha Christie novel as I shopped for groceries, chopped vegetables, sewed a hem or took my walk. This week, I started Sadhana: The Realisation of Life, by Rabindranath Tagore, a deeply spiritual Bengali writer who in 1913 won the first Nobel Prize for literature awarded to an Asian. Sadhana was published in 1916; it compiles a series of talks given at Harvard, summing up Tagore’s understanding of life as shaped by Buddhist and Hindu teachings.
Here’s the thing that got me excited one morning as I waited in line at the Post Office:
Facts are many, but the truth is one. The animal intelligence knows facts, the human mind has power to apprehend truth. The apple falls from the tree, the rain descends upon the earth–you can go on burdening your memory with such facts and never come to an end. But once you get hold of the law of gravitation you can dispense with the necessity of collecting facts ad infinitum. You have got at one truth which governs numberless facts. This discovery of truth is pure joy to man–it is a liberation of his mind. For, a mere fact is like a blind lane, it leads only to itself–it has no beyond. But a truth opens up a whole horizon, it leads us to the infinite.
How was I able to quote the exact text of this excerpt? Simple, I downloaded the book from Project Gutenberg, which offers some audio books, but many more free public-domain ebooks of texts in various languages (the great bulk, over 16,000, in English). Both LibriVox and Project Gutenberg feature links to other sites that make books available (which feature links to yet more sites and so on, so on, so on).
When I let myself truly apprehend the extent to which the well of human knowledge has become accessible through the Internet (which includes apprehending what is key to these projects, countless volunteers who type or read the texts as free-will offerings to their fellow humans), I practically swoon. Is this not beautiful? Is this not an outpouring of the love of learning that animates the human project? Is this not reason to hope?
Well, when you run out of novels from Librivox (or are just looking for a laugh), do check this out:
I have been doing a daily (as in seven days a week) podcast called ‘Mister Ron’s Basement’ wherein I read humorous stories from the public domain. As of today, I have uploaded 442 episodes. Authors include well-known names such as Twain, Harte, O Henry, etc., but more often I ressurect long-forgotten and little known authors who really deserve to reach modern audiences.
This includes writers such as George Ade, Stephen Leacock, Ellis Parker Butler, Fanny Fern, Marietta Holley, Josephine Dodge Daskam, C. B. Lewis (M. Quad), Charles Battell Loomis, Bill Nye, Max Adeler, Hugh McHugh, George W. Peck, Frances Whicher, H. C. Bunner, Thomas Bailey Aldritch, Palmer Cox, James M. Bailey, Francis Durivage, Metta Victoria Victor, Frank R. Stockton, and many, many more. This past week, I posted stories by Seba Smith, an almost totally forgotten, but highly influential (and very funny) American humorist from Maine.
My reading style is hit or miss to be sure (the early episodes are much harder to listen to than the newer ones), but most of the stories’ humor hold up well. I tend to avoid stories that lean on dialect humor (which was immensely popular long ago). Each story is introduced by a fair-use swatch of old-time music from the late 19th or early 20th century. All of the stories pre-date 1923, and represent a golden era of (mostly) American classic humor.
You can find Mister Ron’s Basement at http://slapcast.com/users/revry.
Hi,
If you listened to an Agatha Christie story from Librivox, it might have been my Poirot rendition, or it might have been the collaborative work.
But if you’ve heard either, you’re lucky. Two books by Agatha Christie are out of copyright in the US but few other places in the world. The people who own the rights don’t like the idea of free audiobooks at all.
Alex
Arlene,
Great meeting and sharing with you at the Artist Teacher retreat last week. This will soon be added to my website. I’ll be in touch soon. jenni
“Then the Lord said to Moses, “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the some of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you: the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony with the atonement cover on it, and all the other furnishings of the tent – the table and its articles, the pure gold lampstand and all its accessories, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, the basin with its stand – and also the woven garments, both the sacred garments for Aaron the priest and the garments for his sons when they serve as priests, and the anointing oil and fragrant incense for the Holy Place. They are to make them just as I commanded you.” Exodus 31:1-18 NIV Student Bible
“So, let me put my arms around this: God anointed Bezalel as a Master Artist. Next, He anointed Bezalel as a Master Teacher. God then anointed Oholiab with artisan and teaching skills – (note the order of anointing – Artist first, Teacher second) – placing Oholiab as ‘Sous Chef’ next to Bezalel. Hmmm……God “chose” them and filled them with the Spirit, with skill, ability and knowledge of the arts. (I like to think of these two as the first Interdisciplinary Artists. Multi-faceted for multi-purpose.)
God then anointed the artisans as Teachers…there were to be hundreds of artisans and craftsmen needed to complete the plan. We now have the first Artist Teachers and the first Creative Community!
With this, God set His ‘creative brief’ into motion. The Temple needed the Artist’s Touch. And so, in perfect order, with infinite knowledge, the Artist Teachers strategically executed the Master Plan.
But O! the woe…Where is the Church today? The arts are all but void in so many of the Christian churches. The lingering question in my spirit…If God anointed the artist teachers, then how do we make the ‘change of the century’ and allow God’s creative heart back into the Church? And in turn, give validity and purpose back to the Artist…turning O! the woe into O! the Joy!”